... Why are referees that lack the core knowledge to do the job being certified by WPA? Why does it seem that referees getting the most noteworthy assignments in pool are the ones making the most errors? Why doesn't WPA care about the precipitous decline in performance of referees in pool? ...
Training referees is a hard job. In the particular case of The Pongers Push, the shot is rare and extreme, and it could easily have never been included explicitly in whatever training the referee received. It is one thing to know the words of the rule and a very different thing to see an extreme case of it in action and be required to make the correct call quickly.
As far as judging good/bad hits by the action of the balls, that's also hard and complicated. Many players don't understand how to apply two successive cases of the 90-degree rule, and that applies to some refs as well.
But I have heard that some officials are not interested in the details of how the physics works, even to the level of being able to correctly judge the WC8B shot and they do not see why referees should learn such things. Just make a call -- no need to think. That's a problem.
I've seen several "Good hit?" posts on Facebook. The votes are often split 50-50 even though the call looks obvious to me. When the correct voters comment about why they voted that way, they are usually wrong or confused.